Do The Right Thing Analysis

Do The Right Thing is a fictional narrative that surrounds an Italian restaurant in the middle of a black neighborhood. Do The Right Thing does something that no other film was able to do, which is, “… present the aspects of the culture - language, dress, attitude, music - in a realistic context…” (Donalson 23). Donalson was correct - this film didn’t just serve to depict the random lives of a community, but rather the political and racial tension their community (and, I imagine, the rest of the United States) is undergoing in the 1980s. It’s a very special film because it doesn’t need to introduce the audience to the hip-hop culture and it most certainly does not romanticize it. Do The Right Thing shows the racial tension and lack of opportunity the black community was facing during the eighties while overcoming the African American stereotypes shown within the documentary Classified X. One of the more compelling scenes within
The lyrics are a representation of the African American struggle for equality, and the fact that Raheem is choked to death by a police officer at the end of the film only drives home the need for that fight to be even more present in the lives of American citizens. Before this happens, however, there is a striking scene within this film that surrounds Raheem and Sal’s Italian restaurant. Johnson asserts, “Radio Raheem’s Public Enemy not only imposes music upon Sal’s place, it also infuses the popular neighborhood hangout with unwelcome social criticism from a young, urban black male perspective” (26). In the last minutes before his death, Sal shows him contempt for Raheem’s music (and contempt for the African American culture) by smashing the boombox. This displays suppression of African American culture through the silencing of hip-hop